


Someone by your side is your only wish

by AnimusStuff (DarthAnimus)



Category: BIRDMEN - 田辺イエロウ | Tanabe Yellow
Genre: Character Study, Codependency, Eishi the Angry Bird, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-02-01 01:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12693816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthAnimus/pseuds/AnimusStuff
Summary: Eishi has always wanted friends for Kamoda. It has nothing to do with him being lonely. Nope.





	Someone by your side is your only wish

**Author's Note:**

> Birdmen Week 2017: Day 6: Loneliness/Camaderie

In the end, it was all Kamoda's fault. Eishi had been happy being a glum recluse who rarely interacted with people before Kamoda became a fixed point in his life. Whether or not he shot envious glances at groups of friends was beside the point; it wasn't like Eishi would have ever acted to make the forging of a friendship possible if it hadn't been for Kamoda and his accursed need to be _social_.

Eishi had to study people, and judge their worthiness as friends. This was because one of the first things Eishi learned about Kamoda was that he was indiscriminate with his affections. His friends turned on him and started bullying him? He still considered them his friends and it was up to Eishi to get them to back off.

Eishi had never been more glad than when the lot had never gone to the same middle school as them, or Eishi might have seriously needed to start considering violence to keep them away from Kamoda. It wasn't like Kamoda was going to cut off undeserving people from his life, so Eishi had to convince said people to keep their distance of their own volition.

Whatever went down with the basketball club was more complicated and difficult to deal with. It wasn't like Kamoda hadn't seen the repercussions coming for the way he kept attracting trouble. But whenever Eishi saw the resulting treatment the remaining club members directed at Kamoda, Eishi felt the desire to brain someone with his school chair.

It was just as well that he was too scrawny to lift his chair, let alone aim it at someone's head.

People had hurt Kamoda, they kept hurting him and were seeking ways of hurting him more. Silent treatments, ambushes along shortcuts and nasty whispers in the school halls were a constant presence in Kamoda's life, to the degree where Eishi could catalogue it all as his hatred of other people increased.

Kamoda was sweet, he was kind and had a contagiously good mood that was easy to lift even when something had him briefly down in the dumps. The idea that some people would willingly bring him harm was unacceptable to Eishi. None of those people were worthy of Kamoda's friendship or becoming his girlfriend, they weren't even worthy to breathe the same air as him.

Eishi didn't like to dwell on it, because it always turned his thoughts thunderous and hostile, but he wished Kamoda could get some better friends. Kamoda needed people who valued him and adored him just as much as Kamoda would care for them.

When he and Kamoda first became Birdmen, Eishi _hated it_. It wasn't just the weird new powers and a body that seemed somehow _off_. It was the "Bird Club", the group of strangers who ingratiated themselves into his and Kamoda's company for the pupose of hanging out and having fun instead of simply being focused on fixing the freaky thing that had happened to them. The first time they gathered together, Tsubame and Sagisawa were throwing the word "comrade" around so casually, when Kamoda really had a weakness for teams and teamwork.

Then Tsubame started calling Kamoda "Kamo-chan" merely days after meeting him and Eishi was left wondering if he'd missed something or if Tsubame was always that familiar with people. Bubbly girls were usually scared of Kamoda, so Tsubame's familiarity with him made Eishi suspicious.

The other two Birdmen weren't any less dangerous. Takayama had only very haltingly declared himself their friend, while Sagisawa was inquisitive, asked a lot of question and acted friendly despite being capable of being very distant at times.

All in all, at the very beginning, Eishi hadn't trusted any of the three around Kamoda. He'd wanted to warn Kamoda away from them, to not get attached, but doing something like that was futile at best. And none of them had the kind of personality Eishi could scare away from Kamoda. Tsubame was as frank and positive as Kamoda, Sagisawa was capable of always getting his way and Takayama just didn't seem to care one bit about anything.

In the end, none of it was that simple, however. Tsubame was as lonely as any of them. Sagisawa was open and earnest and any closed-offness was the exception and not the norm. Takayama cared _too much_ about everything (except about the things that really mattered, Eishi often thought with frustration, like keeping his identity a secret). Just as Kamoda grew attached to them like a bunch of new cats, they also grew to care for him.

Eishi himself couldn't resist the pull either. As time passed, he found himself doing things he never would have before. He listened to Tsubame's concerns and tried to offer advice, he opened up to Sagisawa about his thoughts and feelings and, most of all, he admitted his own weakness to Takayama, seeking his counsel and guidance.

The Bird Club was everything Eishi could have hoped for. They were everything he had wanted for Kamoda. They were kind, honest friends who supported each other, laughed together and came to each other with their problems. But, in addition to that, they were also everything Eishi had never thought to hope for himself.

Eishi had always wanted Kamoda to find people who made him happy, not really considering his own role in the equation. However, each and every one of these new people cared about Eishi as well as Kamoda. They valued his contributions, didn't silence his opinions and didn't judge his attachment to Kamoda. They accepted everything about Eishi and, in return, Eishi found himself trying to do better for their sake as well as his own. They had a group of friends that couldn't exist without any of its members.

When Eishi first started feeling secure merely by their group being gathered, he was swept away by the novelty. Later on he wondered just when he'd opened up his heart this much, to welcome so many people into his life and to feel anxious when they weren't there.

It could be easy to claim that the bus accident and following transformation had altered Eishi to such a degree as to consider the Bird Club an irreplaceable part of his life. He'd been changed both physically and mentally by the experience, so was an emotional change really so far-fetched?

Even so, no manner of new powers or body alterations could change the fact that Eishi's first friend had been Kamoda. Kamoda had been the one to open Eishi's heart to begin with and it was through that crack that the other three crept in, years later. Yes, it was definitely all Kamoda's fault.

Regardless of where he laid the blame for how things turned out, however, Eishi couldn't really regret any of it. Not when the reward was this erasure of loneliness.


End file.
